Letters from Home
by IvyShort
Summary: Maybe she'd tell him about the butterflies that lept to life in her stomach someday. Maybe that day would come when Nora could finally be trusted with the mail. Contains Jaune being dumb and Pyrrha being Pyrrha.


Nora was in charge of the mail.

It was a simple enough chore - Nora could get distracted in the middle of it and usually the mail would turn out fine. It was inconsequential enough that if she forgot it one - or twelve - days in a row there weren't severe repercussions. Pyrrha kept the dorm tidy, Jaune did the laundry, Ren took care of the dishes, and Nora got the mail.

Pyrrha had wondered on several different occasions whether it was wise to entrust her with such a simple task. _Surely,_ she had thought, _Nora must be trusted with more than just the mail if she is to be a successful huntress and teammate. _

Ren had been the one to talk sense into her when she handed Nora the dustpan one day and ended up with more dirt on the floor than she had started out with. It was a noble venture, for certain, to attempt to instill work ethic into her, but it was doomed to end in failure. For all her gung-ho attitude and skill in battle, Nora Valkyrie was a ditz. Bless Ren for putting up wtih her all the years they'd been together (but not, as she would put it, "together-together" though Pyrrha would certainly beg to differ).

The letters addressed to Nora and Ren were opened before the redhead left the mailroom most of the time, eagerly creased and crumpled for news of home. They were always addressed to both of them anyway - the two families had been so close for so long that they didn't even bother sending their children separate envelopes. Ren read them quietly and usually mailed his and Nora's response the next morning, elegant script sending the envelope so many miles away to the tiny village they called home.

Pyrrha opened each of her letters slowly and replied to them in her free moments, urging fans to keep reaching for their dreams and working hard to attain them. The bulk of her fanmail hadn't followed her to Beacon, but plenty had wormed through the cracks to keep her busy. She was grateful for it. Her teammates couldn't tell when she was replying to fans and when she was writing home.

And if she had never written home at all, well, they didn't have to know. Nevermind the fact that she had no home to write to in the first place. It was nothing they needed to concern themselves about.

But even if she didn't miss her nonexistent home, it bothered her when Jaune downright ignored his. The heavy cream envelopes with the slanted handwriting in blue ink tended to start on his bed, travel to his desk, then back to his bed before finally being thrown into the sock drawer in his wardrobe about a week after they arrived. He had ever opened one of his letters - one with his name scrawled in pink crayon with little yellow hearts decorating the envelope on all sides. There had been a letter inside, written in the same slanted handwriting the other envelopes wore as their badge of shame, but it had been thrown in the trash as soon as he had seen it.

Only the page of doodles had made it past his screening process and been hung in the highest place of honor - the corkboard on the wall behind his desk.

She had fished the letter out of the trash when he left the room and tucked it into the bottom drawer of her desk. It wasn't hers to read, but she couldn't let it be thrown away.

Autumn turned to winter, and still he did not open the letters that arrived every week. She was his partner and while she understood it was important not to pry, it was high time he sorted this out. Just because she was alone didn't mean he had to be.

She put it off anyway.

It was early evening one Friday when she finally managed to work up the nerve to confront him. Her, Pyrrha Nikos, four-time Mistral Regional Tournament champion, too scared to talk to her partner. She almost let him be again - he was working on homework so diligently and that hardly ever occurred without several well-placed suggestions.

"Jaune, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

His head snapped up so quickly she could have sworn it blurred as it moved, but he took a second to turn to face her.

"Uh, yeah, shoot," he stammered, tapping the pen against his history textbook.

She bit her lip before speaking, fighting the urge to shrug and tell him _nevermind. _Maybe the risk wasn't worth it. Maybe it was better if she didn't stir the waters. It'd been a tumultuous few months - why should she endanger their friendship?

"Why don't you read your family's letters? You talk so fondly of them and..."

She trailed off, staring at her half-finished essay instead of the blonde boy in front of her. Mistake. Mistake. What the _hell _had she been thinking? He wasn't moving. Was he even _breathing_?

"I'm sorry. I'm intruding. Please forget I said anything."

"Nah, don't be. I just, uh," he paused, scratching the back of his neck. When he spoke again, his voice was softer but no less strained, "My dad doesn't actually know I'm here. The return address would kind of throw that right out, y'know?"

"He wouldn't be pleased you're at Beacon?" she asked, "He's a legendary huntsman, you said so yourself."

He shrugged, tugging ever so slightly on the collar of his blazer, "Yeah."

She let the silence fall, awkward and thick between them like glass that warped reflection. She had tried, at least. That had to count for something.

"I know it's probably weird for you," Jaune continued quietly a few minutes later, "I mean, you write to your folks all the time and-"

"I think you should write to them," she blurted, words spilling from her mouth before her tongue could put them in check, "They must be worried."

"No, not yet," The pen tapped more quickly as his voice rose in pitch and just enough in volume to remind her of the first night on the roof.

She thought they had worked through this after the incident with the Ursa. Pyrrha's fingers flexed and curled, lifting off the desk so she could fold them tightly across her chest. This time, she had to force out the words, "Don't do this again, Jaune. You can't shut yourself away until you think you're good enough. The people who care about you suffer."

"This is different," he protested, looking past her rather than into the worried green eyes. She wondered briefly if he'd had the conversation before - his voice was even now, almost rehearsed, but his body language was stiff and unnatural.

Nora's mirror was just behind Pyrrha and he was looking straight into it as he spoke.

"It's not, and you know it," she tried to adjust herself so that he couldn't see himself anymore, "Come on, Jaune, you've improved immensely just in the last few months! Your family will be so proud!"

He didn't shake off the hand she put on his shoulder immediately, looking at it with wide, disbelieving eyes before shrinking away from her touch. Lips pursed, he ducked his head away, "No, they won't!"

"Yes, they will!"

"I can't do it, Pyrrha!" he replied, voice hitching, "I can't write to my dad, or my mom, or my sisters!

"No, _I _can't! At least you have a choice!" she snapped, no doubt loud enough to be heard by team RWBY across the hall.

She wasn't sure when she had pushed her chair back and stood, or when the lump in her throat had become too difficult to speak around without yelling. She should have dropped the subject. She shouldn't have even brought it up in the first place. Mistake. Mistake. All of this was a mistake.

Jaune rose to his feet slowly, brow furrowed, "What?"

The room seemed to drop ten degrees in an instant, sending shivers down her spine. She waved him away, tugging at the hair that had come loose from her ponytail, hand covering her mouth as if it could put the words back in, "Nothing. N-nevermind. I'm sorry for bringing it up."

"What do you mean you can't?"

She shook her head, lump in her throat too large to whisper even if she wanted to. This wasn't his business. She started to back away, step by step, but this time it was him who grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back in. Damn her and her big mouth. Damn Jaune Arc and his curiosity and his obliviousness and his stubbornness an-

She pushed his hand away this time, mouth curling upwards into her best newspaper smile. Sure, she was a terrible liar, but he was as thick as a concrete wall whenever she tried to tell him anything, so maybe her awful lies would be sufficient enough to change the topic. She could hope. If there was anything she didn't want to do, it was guilt him into writing to his family. If she could talk sense into him, that was one thing, but lording her dead parents over him hardly seemed like the right thing to do.

"Nothing, Jaune. I-I didn't mean anything by it."

Her voice cracked halfway through, hitching upwards in spite of her attempts to keep it even.

"Yeah, right, Pyrrha. Sure," he replied, reaching out again and tightening his grip when she tried to brush him away again, "Even I'm not dumb enough to believe that one, and that's saying something since you convinced me that Nora was an alien for the first month of school."

Pyrrha smiled again, somewhat quieter this time as she remembered the look on Jaune's face when she had confided in him her concern of extraterrestrial teammates. She had been half convinced herself when she had confided in him.

He smiled back at her, the right corner of his mouth tugging further up than the left in the lopsided little grin that usually made her stomach flip-flop.

"Anyway," he said, breaking the short silence and scratching the back of his neck as he spoke, "We should probably talk this out. Without yelling, y'know."

Her gaze dropped from his face to the floor. She couldn't keep this from him forever. They were partners, after all - the best partners had no secrets from each other. From the world, surely, but they were always honest and open with each other.

"I don't want to push you into doing something you don't want to do, Jaune," she began, resisting the urge to bite her lip, "I apologize for trying."

He grimaced, "Nah, don't be sorry. I never said I didn't want to. It's just...until I turn eighteen, Dad could pull me out, y'know? And I know I'm not the best partner or fighter or anything at all really, but I really want to stay here. I'd really miss you guys."

"Jaune, don't talk like that. You're a wonderful partner," she countered gently, covering his hand with hers as it started to slip off her shoulder when his back hunched in the way she was all too familiar with. It happened a lot when he didn't understand something - the slouch, the forced half smile, the look down to his shoes until he managed to level his chin again.

A light blush crept into his cheeks when her hand touched his, but Pyrrha chose to ignore it. No use getting her hopes up. She had made enough of a fool out of herself at the dance, and he liked Weiss anyway. No use getting worked up about a little pink in his cheeks when the thermostat was probably just turned up a little too high.

"So, uh, that's my story, and it's dumb, I know, but it's only a week until my birthday and even reading my family's lett-"

Jaune stopped mid sentence when she put her free hand over his heart and pressed into his chest just enough to feel it beat against his palm. Pyrrha didn't know what to say yet, but she could live with his dumb explanation for the time being. He didn't start speaking again, choosing instead to stand in silence, leaning in ever so slightly.

"I…" she faltered, thanking the gods for the fact that she didn't look him straight in the eye when she didn't have her heels on, "I lost my parents when I was twelve."

"Oh my god."

He didn't sound particularly shocked, but guilt layered his voice immediately. No doubt he was flashing back to all of the casual _your mom _jokes the team passed the day with and the pile of cream envelopes with slanted blue writing sitting in his wardrobe.

"Shit, Pyrrha, I'm so sorry," Jaune said, his words so quick she almost missed them when he pulled her into a hug she hadn't expected, "I'm such an ass, god I'm sorry."

It took her a second to process what had happened and relax in his embrace. She shouldn't have been so shocked - Jaune was the type to hug anything, especially if he was moved enough - but it had been a long time. He never seemed to hug _her. _It was always awkward pats on the back and celebratory fist bumps and any time she managed to hug him herself, Nora seemed to pop up in between.

"There's no reason to be sorry," she mumbled into his shoulder, trying to keep the lump in her throat from overpowering her, "You treated me like anyone else and the last reason I wanted to tell you this was to make you feel guilty for that."

Her stomach knotted as one of his hands moved upwards and untied what was left of her ponytail, twisting itself into the mass of crimson so as to hold her head as close to him as possible. She could still feel his heart beating under her fingertips, soft and steady, not at all like him.

"Yeah, well, I still feel bad about it," he said, shrugging slightly, letting the room fall into silence before whispering his next words, "Secrets suck."

She nodded, hoping to god he wouldn't let go. Not yet.

And he didn't. They stood there for a long time, his head coming to rest against hers. The clock ticked against the silence, filling the room with monotony.

"Would you mind reading my letters with me?" he asked, his voice timid, "I understand if you don't want to, I mean, don't feel pressured or anything. I just, y'know, I have plenty of family. I can share if you want-"

She smiled, feeling the lump she had been fighting in her throat disappear, "I'd love to."

They could take steps to lessen the gap between them. Jaune let go of her slowly, smiling that goofy half-smile again as he went over to his wardrobe and started pulling out the letters. Good partners didn't have secrets - someday, she'd tell him about the way her heart leapt into her throat every time he said her name. Maybe that someday would come when the team could trust Nora with more than just the mail.

She hoped it came sooner than that, considering that Nora had nearly blown up the mailroom earlier that day, but her crush came second to her friendship.

Pyrrha read the first one aloud, soft and slow, savoring each word more than she knew she should. This was Jaune's family, not hers. There was no reason for her to feel attached to them.

He listened attentively, looking over her shoulder as she read and pointing out the different names as they came.

"Amari is my oldest sister. She got married a few weeks before I left."

"Zalda is the baby. She's three."

"Gialla's twenty. She's going to be a detective."

Pyrrha forgot the names almost as soon as he said them, but smiled along anyway, happy to see him so engrossed in the letters he had avoided. Most of his sisters wrote him a page or two along with the two pages he got from his mother in the neat, slanted blue script. Gialla's handwriting was small print. She usually switched pens halfway through, mentioning the switch only briefly after it occurred, citing ink trouble. Rubia dotted her i's with hearts, but she was ten and Jaune barely recognized her penmanship. Apparently whenever she usually wrote, it was an illegible mess. Pages upon pages of crayon doodles from Zalda and his second youngest sister, Buidhe, quickly filled the corkboard behind his desk and, once that was brimming, leaked into her own.

It was strange to be included - surrounded by people, even if they were only on paper. She could see how they were all related to Jaune - all of them seemed to favor extremely corny motivational one-liners and get off topic easily. Even his father wrote a page occasionally, wishing Jaune luck and love, but usually his words were transcribed in Jaune's mother's slanted blue script.

"November 17th," she read the header of the next letter, her stomach sinking when she realized that they had skipped a week.

"Wait, that's not right," Jaune started to lift up envelopes, checking timestamps as if the letters they had already read would somehow produce one for November 10th, voice hitching as he became more panicked, "Shit, shit, that was the one I-"

"I… I have it, Jaune," Pyrrha confessed, squeezing her eyes shut and putting the letter from the 17th on the desk beside her, "I took it out of the trash when you left the room that day."

"You have it?" he repeated. He didn't sound angry - she dared open an eye, "Did you…"

She shook her head, "I wouldn't dream of it. I just couldn't watch you throw it away."

Jaune groaned, rubbing his face with his hands, "You gotta stop saving my ass all the time, Pyrrha."

She laughed a little as she leaned down to open the bottom drawer of her desk, pulling the folded paper out from underneath some folders reserved for Oobleck's class, "I have difficulty believing that I'm as helpful as you make me out to be."

The blonde caught her shoulders as she straightened up again, slouching over in his chair to be closer to her when he spoke again, softly but with a force behind it so strong she couldn't deny his next words. The voice of a true leader. Sure, he wasn't an experienced fighter, but she'd seen enough of those to last a lifetime. She had chosen the right partner.

Caught up in the tone of his voice, Pyrrha nearly missed the words. Her fingers loosened around the sheet of paper, dangerously close to letting it drop altogether.

"C'mon, don't give me that. You're my best friend, you can't go trashing yourself all the time. That's my job. You're pretty much everything that's right with the world, you can act like it."

She blinked and handed him his mother's letter after a moment, head swimming from the high praise. His cheeks were pink again. She had to remember to turn the heat down.

"Dear Jaune," he began, glancing back up to his motionless partner nervously before reading the rest of the letter, "I know you…"

He came to a dead stop, blood draining from his face. The paper fell to the floor at last, slipping through fingers that suddenly couldn't grasp anything. She shook herself back to the situation and picked up the letter, slipping her hand into his, giving it a light squeeze and him a small, reassuring smile.

"Dear Jaune," she continued. His father was writing this time, which was out of the ordinary, "I know you took Crocea Mors. Finish your year. We'll talk when you get home."

"Couldn't keep it up forever," he muttered, shrugging and squeezing her hand tighter. The devastation was all too clear in his voice when it cracked halfway through his sentence.

"Jaune, you turn eighteen in a week," she reminded him gently, "They can't pull you from Beacon if they wait until July to talk to you."

"Yeah, but Crocea Mors is still my dad's. It belongs to him - it's his right to take what's his, and he's made it pretty clear that he doesn't want any more huntsmen in the family."

Pyrrha swapped out the letters, unfolding the pages from November 17th again and clearing her throat. She didn't have any idea what to say at even the concept of losing Jaune. She pushed the idea out of her mind. They still had a few letters to go until they were caught up. No sense in despairing yet.

"Dear Jaune," she read again, relieved to see his mother's handwriting again, "Dad's not going to pull you out of Beacon, so you can start writing us back, sweetheart. We worry."

She wasn't sure he heard her read any of the next letters, but she kept reading anyway, around the stubborn lump in her throat and the suffocating silence of the dorm. Each week, his mother urged him to reply. Even through nothing but the paper and ink, Pyrrha could tell that she was getting nervous.

"December 29th," she murmured, marvelling at how quickly the letter had arrived and at how Nora had managed to get the mail on time for once, "Dear Jaune. We were hoping to see you for the holidays, but obviously that won't be the case. We'll save most of your birthday presents for when you get home, but your father has one that he doesn't want you to wait for."

The handwriting changed. Pyrrha was tempted to lower her voice and ease the tenseness of the situation, but decided against it.

"Hey Corncob. Your mother's worried sick. She's convinced herself that you got into some sort of training accident. You and I both know you're made of tougher stuff, but do her a favor and write back."

Jaune looked up at her for the first time since the November 10th letter, and Pyrrha paused, offering the paper to him. He shook his head, muttering something about liking her voice (she reminded herself the gravity of the situation and how it was incredibly inappropriate to take that as anything but a platonic compliment). She nodded, swallowed, and continued on.

"Now, on to the important stuff. You obviously have your heart set on the thing I told all you rascals not to do, but contrary to popular belief around here, I'm not heartless. Your mother managed to talk sense into me, but if your sisters get any ideas about being huntresses, I'm blaming you. I'll make you a deal. If you can make it through Beacon, Crocea Mors is all yours. You're not allowed to turn her into a gun, though. I draw the line there."

Jaune smiled, wiping the corners of his eyes with his free hand, "You sure you're reading right?"

She turned the letter over and offered it to him, squeezing his hand again. His grin only stretched further as his eyes scanned the document, wide enough to show the crooked canine on the bottom right and crack his chapped lips.

"I guess...I guess it's time I write back," he said eventually, straightening up and looking Pyrrha in the eyes, "You want to write too? They'd be thrilled."

She smiled and shook her head, ruffling his hair and letting her hand linger on his cheek for a split second before realizing her mistake and pulling away, "I think they'd much rather hear from you."

It was still Jaune's family - not hers. She had lost her first family, but the past four months had been the least lonely of her life. She already had a second family - the seven other people she cared for most in the world. That was plenty for her.

.

It had taken him three hours, but he had finally finished the letter. Five messy, handwritten pages later, the clock on his desk read midnight and he finally noticed the redhead slumped over her history textbook, holding her pen even though it was obvious her eyes had closed far earlier in the evening. Pyrrha was usually the night owl of the group (besides Nora, who Jaune honestly doubted _ever _slept), but it had been a long week.

He smiled again, wishing her desk was next to his rather than catty corner behind him. Thought flashed to the second page of his letter, which said the word "Pyrrha" far more often than he cared to admit. It was _natural _to talk a lot about his partner, right? It was normal to dedicate an entire page to singing her praises. She had a lot of them, after all. More than anyone - even Weiss, who had barely gotten three sentences. Sure, he _liked _Weiss, but it wasn't like she'd ever look twice at him. He and Weiss were never going to happen.

Even if he had some nagging suspicion that he was some sort of project to Pyrrha, at least she was kind. And funny.

And beautiful.

Caring. Strong. Brilliant. Skilled. Patien-

He forced himself to stop, folding the letter up and shoving it in his desk drawer, intent on finding an envelope in the morning. There was no chance she could ever like him as anything but a friend. He couldn't let himself fall head over heels for the second time in a single semester - he was already a hot mess. Minus the hot.

"Yo, Pyrrha," he murmured, shaking her gently. She didn't stir.

He grimaced, unwilling to leave her in such an uncomfortable spot.

There were other options, sure. He could wake her up and listen to her apologize over and over for troubling him (even though it was never a trouble). He could leave her there, sleeping on her desk.

But somehow, getting her to her bed was the only real one.

He had carried her once before, when he had accidentally knocked her out during combat practice with a rogue elbow, but she had been wearing her armor that day and it had been more like a half-drag to the lip of the roof until he wasn't scared of her falling off the edge when she came to.

She was much lighter without the armor, but it was still awkward, her face pressed against his shoulder and his hands under her back and knees. He hoped to god that Ren and Nora didn't come bursting into the room in the next two minutes (with his luck they would) and wake Pyrrha up. He'd never hear the end of it.

_Just like carrying his sisters to bed, _he kept repeating to himself to keep the blush from spreading any further on his cheeks. It was a futile effort.

This had been the only day of the year she hadn't made her bed, which made his life easier as he set her down. There was no hope of getting her into pajamas, so taking her shoes off and slipping off the uniform blazer had to suffice until she woke up at some point in the middle of the night and changed. Moonlight filtered in through the window, clashing with the warm yellow light of his desk lamp and peppering Pyrrha with strange shadows that danced across her face.

Her face was inches away from his, closer than they ever got outside of his dreams. Jaune closed the space with a gentle kiss on her cheek, tucking stray crimson hairs behind her ear. His stomach dropped when he realized what he was doing, hand freezing as he pulled away. What the hell was he thinking? God, he was an _idiot. _She was his _best friend _and _god _knew why she was even that close to him. Pyrrha wasn't his sister, and she'd never be his girlfriend. He was going to mess this up.

What the hell had he gotten himself into?

**this is five thousand words of absolute ridiculousness please rescue me from the hell that is arkos **

**or at least start writing fics for me to read because damn these two are ridiculous.**


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